She went a few more steps.
“Per favore, Sameera.”
She turned around to find that perceptive gaze watching her. “Why do you do that?”
“Sayplease?”
“Call me Sameera in such a…” She blew out a breath. “Why can’t you just call me Sam?”
A casual shrug which didn’t fool her at all.
“Tell me, Alessandro. Now.”
“I like you best like this,bella.”
The man disarmed her like no one could. “Like how?”
“All fierce and demanding.”
Sam swallowed. He lit a fire in her body with a simple sentence, and took up space and familiarity with her as if it were his birthright. From the first moment, he’d given her honesty, realness and himself. “Answer my question.”
His chin lifted from his chest. “Sam is his name for you.”
Shock made her stare at him for long minutes. There had been distaste but also something so…possessive,so feralin that answer. Her breath shallowed. “What?”
“When I hearSam,” he continued softly, “I hear it in Matteo’s voice. All those years gushing about you.Sam’s great. Sam’s wonderful. There’s no one like Sam.I didn’t realize you were a woman. But now I know. You arehisSam.”
You arehisSam.
His words echoed through her, raising a hundred questions.
Reaching him, she extended her hand and slightly pushed down on one hard shoulder. The tension in his frame pinged between them, taut and throbbing. Cupping his face, she tilted his jaw just so, and then she reached up to push the lock of hair that fell on his forehead.
His long fingers wrapped around her wrist and held. With one slight shift, he buried his jaw in her palm. His heavy breath made his body shudder. And with her other hand resting on his shoulder, Sam felt every bit of it. Felt the hunger and heat rise in him and envelop her.
Heart pounding, her fingers fluttered, tingling to touch more of him, to trace every angle and plane of his face. His mouth, open and warm, rested against the base of her palm, his breath coasting against the underside of her wrist. Her chest rose and fell, and every muscle in her shivered.
All she wanted was to keep her hand there and sink into his lap. Tug his head down so that she could kiss that mouth. Tell him that she hadn’t been Matteo’s Sam for a while. Taunt him until he couldn’t switch it off anymore. Tempt him until he eased the constant ache she felt at her core.
In the blink of an eye, he let her go, until she was standing by him, her hands dangling by her sides.
“Sameera?”
She jerked away and reached for a glass of water just to give herself something to do. “Hmm?”
“Before Matteo woke up, when the risk of coma was high…it struck me—the source of poison in our relationship—where it had begun. I won’t bore you with how it started. Both of us have let the resentment fester. When I saw him at the hospital, I hated that I never even wished to fix it. Never tried to understand things from his perspective.” Sam could feel his gaze on her face, but she stubbornly kept hers turned away. “But I love him. If he hadn’t recovered—”
“But he did,” she said, loudly. “Soon, Matteo will be back to his vital, wonderful self.”
“Sì, he will. Even if I have to make him take each step.” His Adam’s apple moved. “See, you and I do have something in common.”
“What?” Sam asked, even though she knew what was coming. It was like waiting for the punching bag to hit you back but not knowing when it might happen.
“We both want him to get better. We both love him,sì? You will agree then that we can’t do anything that would hurt him.”
Sam looked at him then, her breath hitching.
It took her an eternity to fix her erratic breathing, to shove away the splintering hurt within her to one corner and lock it up.
